Techbio startup Antiverse has raised an additional £3.5 million ($4.6 million) in seed funding to further develop its generative AI platform for antibody design. The latest investment round, led by i&i Biotech Fund I and Kadmos Capital, brings the company’s total financing to £7.2 million ($10.1 million).
The fresh capital will be used to expand Antiverse’s laboratory and machine learning teams, as well as advance its internal drug discovery programs targeting G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and ion channels. The company aims to progress these antibodies to the clinic in collaboration with pharmaceutical partners.
Antiverse’s platform utilizes a machine learning-centered approach to design antibodies for challenging targets, with a focus on GPCRs. The company claims its technology can accelerate the antibody discovery process to just six months, potentially addressing a significant gap in the pharmaceutical industry.
“A third of all FDA-approved drugs target GPCRs, yet, despite decades of research and billions of funding, only a few GPCR-targeting antibodies exist,” said Murat Tunaboylu, Co-Founder and CEO of Antiverse. “We are one step closer to making GPCRs and other challenging targets druggable, bringing needed therapies to patients across the globe.”
As part of its expansion efforts, Antiverse has opened new facilities in Boston, Massachusetts, and Prague, Czech Republic. The company also plans to improve the predictive accuracy of its design platform by focusing on curating training data.
The investment round saw participation from existing investors InnoSpark Ventures, UKI2S (managed by Future Planet Capital), Tensor Ventures, and AngelHub. Jaromir Zahradka, CEO at i&i Bio, expressed confidence in Antiverse’s progress in the field of antibody design, while John Gebeily, Operating Partner at Kadmos Capital, highlighted the platform’s potential to accelerate the development of novel antibody therapeutics for complex drug targets.